Elizabeth Marshall Thomas Knihy

Have you ever wondered what the world looks like to your dog? Or what it smells and sounds like? Do dogs have crushes or love affairs? Do they dream, and what about? This book is the result of 30 years of living with dogs, wolves and dingoes. The author visits their minds and provides an insight into a species different from our own, but in many respects surprisingly the same.

From the revered author of the bestselling The Hidden Life of Dogs, a witty, engaging, life-affirming account of the joy, strength and wisdom that comes with age.

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas was nineteen when her father took his family to live among the Bushmen of the Kalahari. Fifty years later, after a life of writing and study, Thomas returns to her experiences with the Bushmen, one of the last hunter-gatherer societies on earth, and discovers among them an essential link to the origins of all human society. Humans lived for 1,500 centuries as roving clans, adapting daily to changes in environment and food supply, living for the most part like their animal ancestors. Those origins are not so easily abandoned, Thomas suggests, and our modern society has plenty still to learn from the Bushmen. Through her vivid, empathic account, Thomas reveals a template for the lives and societies of all humankind.

Focusing on the dynamics between dogs and their human families, the author draws from her experiences to explore canine behavior and communication. As an anthropologist, she addresses common questions about dogs, such as the significance of their barks, challenges in house-training, and the intriguing relationships between dogs and cats. Through engaging anecdotes from her own household, she provides insights into how dogs have adapted to coexist with humans and each other, enriching our understanding of these beloved pets.

“A study of primitive people which, for beauty of . . . style and concept, would be hard to match.” — The New York Times Book ReviewIn the 1950s Elizabeth Marshall Thomas became one of the first Westerners to live with the Bushmen of the Kalahari desert in Botswana and South-West Africa. Her account of these nomadic hunter-gatherers, whose way of life had remained unchanged for thousands of years, is a ground-breaking work of anthropology, remarkable not only for its scholarship but for its novelistic grasp of character. On the basis of field trips in the 1980s, Thomas has now updated her book to show what happened to the Bushmen as the tide of industrial civilization—with its flotsam of property rights, wage labor, and alcohol—swept over them. The result is a powerful, elegiac look at an endangered culture as well as a provocative critique of our own."The charm of this book is that the author can so truly convey the strangeness of the desert life in which we perceive human traits as familiar as our own. . . . The Harmless People is a model of the style very simple and precise, perfectly suited to the neat, even fastidious activities of a people who must make their world out of next to nothing." — The Atlantic

"Tamed and Untamed -- a collection of essays penned by two of the world's most celebrated animal writers, Sy Montgomery and Elizabeth Marshall Thomas -- explores the minds, lives, and mysteries of animals as diverse as snails, house cats, hawks, sharks, dogs, lions, and even octopuses. Drawing on stories of animals both wild and domestic, the two authors, also best friends, created this book to put humans back into the animal world. The more we learn about what other animals think and do, they explain, the more we understand ourselves as animals, too. Writes Montgomery, "The list of attributes once thought to be unique to our species -- from using tools to waging war -- is not only rapidly shrinking, but starting to sound less and less impressive when we compare them with other animals' powers." With humor, empathy, and introspection, Montgomery and Thomas look into the lives of all kinds of creatures -- from man's best friend to the great white shark -- and examine the ways we connect with our fellow species. Both authors have devoted their lives to sharing the animal kingdom's magic with others, and their combined wisdom is an indispensable contribution to the field of animal literature. The book contains a foreword by Vicki Constantine Croke, author of the bestseller"--

What do cats want. What are they really thinking? And How do they view us?Elizabeth Marshall Thomas's instinct for understanding what makes animals behave the way they do made THE HIDDEN LIFE OF DOGS a worldwide bestseller. In TRIBE OF THE TIGER, she now turns her attention on felines, both large and small, domestic and wild. She looks at the bonds they form with humans and with each other, and how the hunting instinct of cats in the wild is reflected in the behaviour of domesticated animals. Do cats have emotions, and if so, how are they expressed? Why do cats purr?In this fascinating book - a must for all cat lovers - Elizabeth Marshall Thomas sheds light on these intriguing questions and many more.

Exploring the intricate dynamics of dog behavior, anthropologist Elizabeth Marshall Thomas offers insights into the social structures and desires of dogs. Her groundbreaking observations challenge conventional views and provide a fresh perspective on the bond between humans and their canine companions, paving the way for a deeper understanding of their instincts and social interactions.